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| A mother's grief: Mumini Ibrahim looks at her dead baby Osman as she holds his twin sister Katida |
Somalia - They call it Bula Bakti, the Carcass Dump. Here, in 37-degree heat, we help to dig a grave for Osman, a seven-month old boy, who died of starvation in his mother’s arms the previous night. It is 12.45pm on Saturday, and before Osman’s body is committed to the earth, his mother brings us to her home — a hut made from tree branches tied together into a dome and covered with bits of plastic for a roof. Osman’s body lays on the mud floor; his mother, Mumini Ibrahim, sitting beside it, with Osman’s twin sister Kadida nestled against her breast. The surviving twin stares out at me with beautiful brown, scared eyes. Osman’s eyes are covered with a piece of fabric and his naked, emaciated body sits like an exhibit of macabre evidence on the floor. His death will not go down as natural causes, or even as a crime against humanity, because Mumini will probably never officially report that Osman is dead. If she did, she would lose one portion of food rations from the World Food Programme. It’s better to bury Osman in the Carcass Dump, alongside scores of other small mounds of dissipating clay where the dead children lie, their lives and deaths marked by little more than a twig or plastic bottle on the grave. Full Story>>
The shocking reality of the Somalian famine: How a mother is forced to conceal her child's body to keep his food ration for starving twin sister http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020938/Somalian-famine-Mother-conceals-childs-body-food-ration-starving-twin-sister.html?ito=feeds-newsxml